


I Wish I Was Your Boy

by PoetOnAPuzzle



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27397270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetOnAPuzzle/pseuds/PoetOnAPuzzle
Summary: Neither of them considers themselves to be the jealous type. Cloud wishes he could be a little closer. Tifa wishes she could close some of the gaps that stretch between them. Together, they move the needle forward and take a step in the right direction.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 4
Kudos: 88





	1. I Wish I Was Your Boy

‘I _wish I was your boy.’_

Cloud blinks. The thought pops into his head and lingers. Like the first rays of sunlight before night recedes.

He wonders if maybe he’s allowed Tifa to make him one too many drinks.

He shakes his head, blonde strands swaying before his eyes. He sits in the corner of the bar, watching as Tifa goes about her work. She darts between tables, refilling glasses, and taking orders. Eventually, she slips past him, placing a hand on his back, asking him if he needs another round.

He stares at her for a moment. His head isn’t foggy, he’s not really drunk. But for the briefest of moments, he feels entirely lost. Only the warmth of her hand on his back seems to anchor him to the rest of the world.

What would it feel like to have the warm hand on his bare skin? Nails digging in between the blades of his shoulders--

“Cloud?”

_‘I really wish I was your boy.’_

“There it is again,” he groans aloud.

Tifa tilts her head, dark hair cascading across her shoulders, and asks, “What? What is?”

“Nothing. Sorry. I’m good,” he says, maybe a little too quickly.

If she thinks anything of his strange behavior, she doesn’t give any outward indication of it, for which Cloud is relieved.

She nods and shifts over to Barret to ask him the same. He says something but Cloud is far too deep in his brain to hear it.

_‘Yeah, definitely one too many drinks.’_

Had he really had that many though? Looking down, his glass is still mostly full. He has barely finished his second Cosmo Canyon…

He’s not one to have those kinds of thoughts. Cloud has always been respectful of Tifa’s individuality. Never one to think of her as an object, or a prize, or a conquest. Suddenly, he gets the sense that he’s twelve again, pining away after the dark-haired girl that got along so well with everyone. Cloud feels his muscles tighten. He hasn’t thought of that boy he used to be in a long time. Still, he thinks it’s strange. Him wishing he was hers. There had always been the assumption inside of him that they were a pair.

A team. That they were one another’s best friend. That there would never really a need to express any sort of possessiveness because they just were.

To further reinforce that idea, Cloud reminds himself that they are a makeshift family. Him and Tifa and Marlene and Denzel. Sure, he and Tifa sleep in separate rooms, and Marlene always asks him why _‘two people who love each other don’t share the same bed?’_ Just like all her other friends’ parents do.

Cloud never has a response to that question. He hates that he doesn’t. It makes him feel oddly inadequate. The closest thing he can get to -- and what he settles on telling Marlene and Denzel whenever they ask -- also feels painfully inadequate.

_“It’s not that simple.”_

He digs his fingers into the cocktail glass. The cool liquid does little to dull the heated beast suddenly roaring inside of him.

_Simple._

Simple didn’t explain why Cloud can’t seem to clear his head of these thoughts. How could anything simple even begin to cover why he suddenly wants to make some kind of drastic change in the dynamic that has worked for them for so long? A dynamic he nearly broke not so long ago in running from her.

 _Simple_ can’t cover why he all of a sudden just wishes she would call him hers.

Cloud realizes his stomach is in knots and his head is pounding.

Too much thinking. Not enough doing. Cloud has never been adept at sorting out his thoughts. For a while, he thought that was fine. Now? Now he isn’t so sure.

He settles on watching Tifa. It’s strangely calming. Watching her work. Given the nature of his thoughts, distantly, he finds it even more confusing that the source of this peculiar new anxiety is also the fastest remedy for it.

An older gentleman waves at her and says something. Tifa listens, and then she responds, placing the drink down in front of the man. She nods, jots down some notes on an aging yellow pad, and then weaves around to a table of younger men. One of them hails here quite loudly – and a bit too obnoxiously for Cloud’s tastes. It comes off as disrespectful to the rest of the patrons and, perhaps even more importantly, it feels disrespectful to Tifa.

They’re factory workers. Cloud can tell by the work boots, all lined with studs at the bottom, steel toes, and metal clasps instead of laces, and by the remnants of dirt on their hands that they couldn’t wash off, like a shadow persistently clinging to their skin. There’s dust in one of the men’s hair – sheeted so thick across the crown of his head that it gives the impression of snow along red strands. The workers wave her down, and Tifa listens as they rattle off orders.

One of the men gives his friend a look. It’s probably nothing. But to Cloud, it seems suggestive and salacious. Tifa smiles politely and stuffs the notepad into her apron and then heads back to the bar to fill their orders.

As she leaves, one of the men leans back in his chair and watches the sway of her hips as she goes. Thudding his chair back down, the group begin to laugh and trade innuendo.

Cloud feels his insides twist up and coil with sudden displeasure.

He hates when people treat her this way.

His hands twitch. The cocktail tips. And out spills the ruby liquid inside.

“Shit!” Barret grabs at his shoulder, and Cloud snaps back into himself, “The hell you doin’ Merc?”

Cloud blinks. Temporarily confused and wondering what happened and why Barret is snapping at him.

The liquid is running across the tabletop, sliding across the lacquered wood like an ocean wave along smooth sand.

“Sorry,” is all Cloud can think to say, still trying to extrapolate himself from the maze of his thoughts. He feels like he is in-between a dream and the waking world. One half of his brain is brooding, and the other train to maintain some semblance of self at the moment.

With clumsy fingers, he reaches for a napkin from the container on the table. He bumps Barret’s beer bottle in his haste and nearly topples that over as well.

“Cool your jets there, merc,” Barret snaps, releasing the hand on Cloud’s shoulder and pulling Cloud back into his seat, “You’re going to break the damn table at this rate.”

Cloud sighs, feeling entirely out of sorts.

_Get your head on straight._

But his mind is still running as Barret hands him a napkin and they begin to wipe down the ruby cocktail smeared across the bar top.

“You good?” Barret asks gruffly.

“Fine.”

“You sure about that?”

“Positive.”

Barret settles his beer against his lips and sips. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen you spill a drink before.”

“I said I was sorry,” Cloud mumbles.

“Just worried about you there, soldier boy,” Barret says, grinning broadly, “Never seen you so up in your head before.”

“I’m not up in my head,” Cloud replies.

“You are. We’ve been sittin’ here for over an hour and you’ve barely spoken a word, even by your standards,” Barret says, “That and you ain’t touched a drop of your drink. You’ve just been starin’ off into space.”

“A guy can’t think?”

“Nah, a man can think all he wants. Brooding though? Now that’s a whole ‘another can of worms,” Barret says, “And you, my spiky-haired friend, were broodin’ up a storm over there. Damn near thought I was gonna have to smack you outta it.”

“I wasn’t brooding,” Cloud says, “I just… had something on my mind. That’s all.”

Barret eyes him expectantly, but when Cloud doesn’t elaborate, he sighs, “Hell, why don’t we have ourselves a drink and talk it over?”

Cloud starts to say something—maybe that he doesn’t think another drink is a good idea for him – but Barret is already waving his hand in the air. He calls Tifa, his booming voice cutting through the aimless chatter of the bar.

“Tifa,” he bellows, “Can we get another round for the spiky dude over here? Fool spilled his drink.”

Tifa perks up, turning her head to spot them from behind the bar. She smiles.

Suddenly Cloud feels like he’s been submerged underwater. Like his head has been filled with cotton. His stomach sinks when she waves back at them and begins to fix another drink inside one of those bullet shakers she’s always been so adept with. Her hair flutters about her body as she works, and Cloud watches the smile spread across her lips, and a look of content focus on her face.

_I wish I could make her smile more._

Warmth blooms in the certain of his chest. Flooding his senses.

Cloud stops himself. That feeling isn’t something he’s sure he should be having.

Without realizing it, he’s already reaching up and wrapping a firm hand around Barret’s arm. He yanks it down. “Please, don’t,” he hisses.

Barret looks at him in confusion. “The hell you doin’?” He shakes his arm from Cloud’s grasp and eyes him, “What? You don’t want another drink?”

Cloud looks at Tifa. She’s already pouring another crimson cocktail into a glass for him. He feels his stomach sink lower. She’s going to come over and then she’s going to be right in front of him and he’s going to have to see that bright smile across her smooth features and see the brilliant red rose of her eyes and watch how they crinkle when he does something clumsy, and he’s going to hear her laugh and wonder how something can sound so crystalline and clear, then he’s going to start thinking about how he wants to make her laugh again just to hear the sound one more time, and—

“Cloud?”

The thoughts drift away. Or maybe, more aptly, they burst into nothingness. Vanishing entirely.

Snapping back into himself, Cloud whirls on Barret, “What?”

“Did somethin’ happen between you and Tifa?”

Cloud sits for a moment, stunned, “No. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Well, you’ve been starin’ at her all night like she might burst into flames.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Kid, I don’t know who you think you’re kidding, but I’ve been sitting here watching you. Are you sure you two didn’t have a fight or somethin’?”

Cloud sputters, surprised, “A fight? What?”

“She’s a patient girl, but hell man, dealin’ with you? I can see how you two could argue at some point.”

That part cuts. A hot knife sliding into the core of him. _Dealing with you?_ Yeah, in a lot of ways, he deserves that, doesn’t he?

“We don’t argue,” Cloud says, maybe a little too sternly, “It’s nothing like that.”

“So then quit your worryin’,” Barret says, clapping him hard on the back. “You two have been through hell and back together. Just talk to her if you’ve got somethin’ on your mind. If anyone is willin’ to listen, god damn, it’s gonna be Tifa.”

A carmine colored sound, a voice, interjects suddenly, “What about me?”

Cloud’s body betrays him, and his head shoots up. He feels his eyes meet the dark rose-colored ones of the object of his confusion. All at once, that feeling is back, and he’s twelve and lost and wishing he could just figure out a way to get her to notice him. Notice him in a way that was beyond the quiet kid next door—

“Aww, nothin’ Tifa. Cloud here’s just been lookin’ a little worse for wear tonight. Got something goin’ on up in that spiky-haired head of his.” Barret reaches over and playfully nudges his shoulder.

To his dismay, Tifa’s face changes. An expression of worry weighs on her features, one Cloud immediately feels guilty for, knowing he’s the reason it’s there. He wants to see a smile on her face, to see the way her eyes crease at the sides when she does, and how her lips turn up so pleasantly. He doesn’t want to cause her any more worry. He knows he’s done enough of that since running off to live in the church.

And then things get worse.

Tifa reaches up and brushes the hair from his forehead. She lays her palm flat on his forehead and holds it there. She doesn’t even realize it, but tonight might be the worst possible time to touch him. Not with his head jumbled like a crossword puzzle and his confusion at a boiling point.

He feels the pad of her forefinger brush his temple.

For the first time in his life, Cloud thinks he might explode.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asks. Her voice sounds so soft and soothing. Like a warm blanket on a cold night. A balm on an aching wound. Cloud feels his skin heat up. This isn’t helping, and now his brain feels infinitely more muddled and lost.

“I—” is all Cloud can manage before Tifa tucks her hair behind her ear and lays her palm against her forehead.

“You do feel a little warm…” she says, readjusting her palm.

_Ignore that. It’s just my brain overheating._

But that sardonic voice in his head dies out when Cloud catches Barret smirking at him from across the table. Pride gets the better of him, or maybe it’s just sheer embarrassment, really it doesn’t matter, because Cloud reaches up and brushes her hand away gently.

Her skin is soft and warm.

“I’m fine.” He settles his hands in his lap.

Cloud wishes he could let his fingers linger there, against the inside of her palm. Feeling the steady vibration of her pulse beneath her skin. He fights the urge to shake his head out. Now isn’t the time to let his mind start wandering. Not when she’s standing right in front of him. Not when he thinks he might want to see what it feels like to run his fingers through her hair.

“Are you sure?” Tifa asks, “I can get you some water, or a ginger ale?”

“Seriously, Tifa, I’m good.”

Cloud hates that he’s renewed his habit of lying to her. Still, it isn’t like he can explain the shift inside his mind, though. He’s not sure it would even make sense if he tried.

“Do you want me to close the bar early?”

Cloud blinks, “What? No,” he tries his best to offer a small smile, “I’m fine. Really. Just a long workday.”

Barret chimes in, “You told me you didn’t work today.”

Tifa nods, “He didn’t.”

Cloud flounders, “It was a joke.”

Tifa looks unconvinced.

A voice calls for her across the bar. When she turns, Cloud lets out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Just a second!” she calls to the patron, then she’s turning back to Cloud and leaning over the table so her dark rose eyes are drilling into his, “I’m going to come back with a ginger ale, and then we’re going to take your temperature.”

“I’m not—”

“No arguing.”

“Tifa—”

“Don’t make me have Marlene lecture you.”

Cloud grumbles.

Triumphantly, Tifa smiles, “Good. Sit tight.”

Tifa hurries off. Cloud watches her go. Tries not to watch the sway of her hips as she retreats.

Beyond Tifa’s retreating form, he spots the factory workers eyeing him. There’s an aura of collective disdain in the looks. Like he’s unworthy of her attention. Or somehow her attention is misplaced on him.

He holds their gaze. Cloud wagers the mako green of his eyes, on top of the icy blue, makes for an eerie staring contest. He’s spot on because the men cut their glare short as Tifa stops at their table.

Barret jostles his arm. “Putcha eyeballs back in your head. You’re droolin’.”

“What?”

“You’re starin’.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You shittin’ me, right?”

“You’re imagining things.”

“Bull.”

“Whatever.”

Cloud makes to stand. Maybe to avoid the path this conversation will inevitably lead down to. Maybe to grab himself another drink so he’s at least somewhere along the lines of sizably drunk before Tifa shows up with a thermometer. Or it could be that he’s hoping another Cosmo Canyon will put him in such a bleary headspace that he won’t even care that Tifa will be touching him, and that her hands will be so warm, and her face will be screwed up in that look of concern when all he wants is for her to smile at him the way she always does.

It doesn’t matter.

He scoots back in his chair, hears the wooden legs grind jarringly on the floor, and freezes.

Tifa is jotting down some notes on her usual yellow notepad. She clicks her pen, stuffing the notepad back in her pocket. One of the men – the one with the dusty snowcapped red hair – is leaning forward, trying to grab her attention.

Cloud can only see half of Tifa’s face. She smiles politely, but her eyes are hard. Lacking the usual carmine spark that lets you know Tifa is happy, and listening, and engaged.

Quickly, Tifa slips away with a small smile and a promise to return shortly with their drinks.

She doesn’t make it very far. Snowcap reaches over and pats her on the rear.

Tifa freezes.

Cloud sees red.

Beside him, Barret has taken notice of Tifa’s rigid posture and stands, “Sonovabitch. I’m gonna kick the—”

But Cloud doesn’t hear the rest. Fire is roaring in his veins. A fury so acute that he can feel it thrumming in his temples. He’s across the bar and his hand is closing around the collar of the snowcapped man in a blur, and Cloud is hauling him up and out of his seat.

There’s a flurry of motion and sound, and buried somewhere in all of it, Cloud hears Tifa shout, “Cloud, don’t! Stop!” but it doesn’t matter. Cloud is dragging the man across the bar, shoes skittering on the floor as he hauls the fool along.

The cacophony of conversation around them has died and all eyes are trained on the sight of the Ex-SOLDIER as he kicks the front door open and hurls the factory worker down the steps.

The man grunts and lands hard on his back. Distantly, Cloud hears the heavy footfalls of his own boots as he trudges down the steps.

Then there are hands on him. Cloud realizes, beneath the inferno twisting inside his stomach, that it’s Snowcap’s friends.

 _That’s fine_ , he thinks.

A meaty hand clamps around his shoulder, twirling him around, but Cloud sees the fist coming from a mile away. It’s sloppy, telegraphed, nothing more than a barfight haymaker. Cloud tilts his head, and the blow sails past his face and the momentum is carrying the owner of said-meaty-fist forward right as Cloud lifts his knee and drives it into the worker’s stomach.

A gagging noise joins the flurry of voices. The worker drops.

Another is coming, ducking low to take Cloud around the middle in a spear-like tackle. Cloud sprawls his legs back, planting himself, and catches the tackle. With a trained flex of innate muscle and fury, Cloud hurls the man away and sends him tumbling to the ground.

Someone swings a bottle. Cloud catches the wrist and twists, there’s a high-pitched yelp, and then a body crumples in front of him.

Suddenly, a fist collides with Cloud’s cheek, but the pain is so far away. Snowcap stands before him, fist still smushed to Cloud’s cheek. There’s a bewildered look of non-understanding plastered across his muddy face. Cloud recognizes the look.

Voices are drifting in and out. People are gathering. Cloud is making a scene and beneath all of the anger, he knows it. Still, the fury persists. Burning hot like embers in the core of his being.

In his mind, Cloud sees this man reaching over and touching Tifa. And it’s not just that Cloud can’t stand men like this – loud and ignorant and selfish. It’s the disrespect towards Tifa that drives Cloud to such acute fury. That there are people who look at her and don’t see her. Just a toned stomach and pair of long legs and a pretty face. That there are people who don’t see Tifa for what she is.

Tifa, the kindest person you will ever meet, a mother to two children that are not her own. Tifa, the woman who has forgiven him time and time again for his failures and believed in him even when he could not believe in himself. Tifa, the woman who pieced him back together after countless times of falling apart. Tifa, the person who remembered who he truly was even when he couldn’t.

No, they don’t see Tifa. His best friend. The woman who means the world to him. The only person whose opinion has ever mattered to him.

And that blindness and disrespect are at the core of all of this hatred for these men.

So, when Cloud reaches up and pries the fist from its place on his cheek, and flings it aside, he intends to send a message. And he does just that. With a blinding flicker of movement, Cloud drives his forehead square into Snowcap’s nose.

The night air blisters against a cry of agony. A snap of bone.

The man staggers back, holding the smushed mess of blood and cartilage that was once a nose. Cloud isn’t done. He darts forward and drives his knuckles straight into the man’s core. Snowcap doesn’t have time to drop, because Cloud is catching his crumbling form, and his hand is coming up, poised to backhand the man like a disobedient child. All to be sure Cloud disrespects this man like he disrespected Tifa.

His hand flies, ready to drive home and—

“Cloud! That’s enough.”

Cloud freezes, hand caught somewhere midair.

He turns, sees Tifa rushing down the stairs.

“Tifa?” he asks, bewildered.

Tifa is beside him, hand reaching up and holding his open palm. There’s warmth in her fingers. The anger dies like a candle snuffed out in the breeze.

Tifa lowers his hand, “Enough, Cloud.” Her voice is impossibly soft.

Where he expects anger and disappointment, there is none. Only whispers and soothing words.

He hates it.

These are people who have disrespected her. She should be furious. But she isn’t, and that confuses Cloud. Still, if she can’t be angry, Cloud thinks he can be angry enough for the both of them.

“Let them go, Cloud,” Tifa whispers.

“Not yet.”

Tifa darts forward, ready to grab him if need be, but Cloud hauls Snowcap up by the collar of his dirty shirt.

He leans in, growls, “Never come back here again. Are we clear?”

Snowcap whimpers, still holding the mess that was once his nose.

“You and your friends are hereby banned from Seventh Heaven,” Cloud says, voice low and harsh, “And you’re going to apologize to Tifa.”

Snowcap shouts an apology, albeit muffled and slurred through his hands.

Tifa doesn’t seem to notice. She holds her eyes on Cloud. But Cloud can’t meet her gaze. He is afraid of what he will find there.

Gripping the man’s collar once more, Cloud gives the man what he hopes is his best death glare.

The unnatural green and icy blue of his eyes don’t disappoint. Snowcap gives an involuntary shiver and cranes his head away from Cloud like Cloud is a snake in his space, poised to strike.

“If I ever find out you decided to show your face around here again, I will break you. And I’ll make sure there’s no one around to stop me next time. Do you understand?”

Snowcap groans but nods.

“Good. Now get lost.”

Cloud lets him drop. He crumples to the ground but doesn’t remain still for long. Snowcap scrambles to his feet, retreating, falling on his hands and knees and stumbling. Kicking up dirt and gravel as he scurries away like a frightened rabbit.

Cloud watches him go for a moment, maybe to ensure the man is actually running and heeding his warning, but, really, it’s to avoid the look in Tifa’s eyes for a moment longer. Steeling himself, Cloud inhales sharply and then turns back to the bar.

Tifa is there, behind him, hands on her hips. The look on her face is a mix of disappointment, anger, and strangely enough, _concern_.

Cloud hates himself. Always two steps forward, one step back. Why does it feel like she only wears that look when it comes to him? Stinging bile rises in his throat. For a while, he thought he’d forgotten why he’d run from her in the first place. Now, he remembers.

It’s that look.

_‘You do nothing but cause her problems. Everywhere you go. You understand that, right?’_

The voice sounds just like the bile in his throat tastes. Desperately, he tries to shove it down. Bury it in the dark corners of his mind. Maybe tonight, in the dark of his room, he’ll unpack it. Wrestle with it until he feels he can convince himself otherwise. That there’s no truth to it.

Cloud tries moving past Tifa. Without conversation, without preamble. It won’t work, but he feels the need to try. He’s only running, and he knows it. Old habits die hard, he supposes.

“Cloud, stop. Hold on,” Tifa says, stepping forward, hand raised. It comes to rest on his shoulder, grip somehow soft and coaxing. Her hands are warm. It makes Cloud’s skull buzz.

She’s fussing with his knuckles, checking them over.

It makes him feel torn inside. That she’s worried about him and not herself. That she’s worried about him despite having just made arguably the biggest scene in Seventh Heaven since that random brawl between the miners and the factory workers some six months ago.

It hurts. Aches. That she’s still worrying about him. That – in his own way – he’s trying to help but it’s only causing her more distress.

Seems too typical of him. Cloud hates it. Wishes he could just shield her for once, so she wouldn’t need to be constantly shielding him from his own rash decisions.

Then an idea strikes him. Like a blooming flower in his brain, it takes form and grows.

It’ll be a bit difficult to balance, he thinks, but he can rework some things during his daily schedule to make it work. If it will keep Tifa safe, and ensure no one treats her like that again, he’s willing to forgo a few exact hours of sleep.

More than anything, it will give him a reason to stay. To be here more. To be present in her life and, even if it’s in the smallest capacity possible, to be her protector for once.

“Cloud. We need to talk.”

“Not yet,” Cloud replies, but places a hand on her shoulder and tries his best to smile.

He climbs the steps back into Seventh Heaven and pushes the doors open.

Faces turn, eyes rake over him. There’s a brief pause. A moment of silence as people consider whether to regard him with fear or respect.

“Starting tonight, and from here on out,” Cloud shouts, voice rising high over the whispers and murmurs of the bar, “Seventh Heaven has a new bodyguard.”

The patrons begin to mumble again, confused, and intrigued.

“Me,” Cloud calls, jabbing a thumb to his chest, “And if anyone disrespects Tifa or the staff here, you will be answering to me. If anyone touches Tifa without her permission, you will answer to me. If anyone starts a fight or disrespects another patron here, you will answer to me. Any questions?”

The bar is mostly a collective gasp of stunned silence, but Cloud thinks he catches a few shakings of heads and that’s good enough for him.

“Good. Spread the word.”

Turning, he finds Tifa waiting for him. Her face is a ball of confusion, concern, and maybe a little bit of frustration.

“We really need to talk,” she says, curtly, “Upstairs. Now, please.”

Cloud swallows dryly. It’s rare to see Tifa genuinely annoyed. Even rarer to see her vocalize it so directly. Usually, she is the one who urges him to take the time to process his emotions. To understand them and accept them before voicing them.

Cloud sighs, as she brushes past him and motions for him to hurry up and follow.

_I think I might have just screwed things up royally._

Silently, Cloud prays he hasn’t and follows her.


	2. Breathing Underwater

Tifa listens to Cloud hiss and swear. The bathroom is filled with the sounds of him.

Downstairs, Barret, Denzel, and Marlene have taken over the bar for her. It’s only temporary, maybe 15 minutes max, but Tifa always worries whenever she puts Barret behind the counter. The man certainly isn’t known for his bedside manner. Not to mention, she gets the sense the bar has become something of a ghost town since Cloud’s abrupt beatdown.

Cloud swears once more, loudly, as she rubs a gauze pad soaked in disinfectant over his knuckles.

“Could you ease up on the rubbing alcohol?” Cloud grumbles.

“No. Not unless you want to get an infection,” she says, sterner than she intends to.

She hates how torn she feels. Part of her wants to thank him because despite how misguided the attempt may have been, he’d been meaning to protect her. And that means a lot. But another part of her feels the need to be stern. Maybe because she’s a little offended Cloud had been so flippant about possibly affecting the business in her bar. A business they need to keep the lights on and to send the kids to school. Good intentions or not, she had still seen several patrons hurry out the door like they’d just witnessed a murder.

She sighs, “What were you thinking?”

He’s slow to answer. When he does, his voice is stiff as a board, “I don’t know.”

She presses another alcohol-soaked gauze strip onto an abrasion on his right hand. He nearly leaps out of the chair. She can’t help the smile that spreads across her features. All of their adventures, their battles, their injuries, and Cloud has never complained. She has seen him run through by a sword, hit with a stray bullet, pummeled by an array of mechs and monsters, and Cloud has never once complained. Not until the rubbing alcohol and bandages come out does Cloud begin to gripe and complain about the pain.

“Liar,” she says, and although she tries for a playful tone, she knows Cloud catches her meaning.

Cloud cannot hold her gaze as she bandages his knuckles.

Tifa works in silence.

When she’s done, they sit there, quietly listening to the other breathe. Across from each other in Tifa’s cramped bathroom above the bar. Cloud sitting on the toilet, rubbing at his bandaged knuckle, looking at it like it might grow fangs and start growling at him, and Tifa perched on the edge of the bathtub.

Setting aside the first aid kit, she sighs and tries once more. “Cloud—”

“He touched you,” Cloud says suddenly, sullenly, “He touched you and treated you like an object and…I don’t know… I saw red for a second.”

“You shattered that man’s nose.”

Cloud growls, “He deserved it.”

Despite the circumstances, Tifa can’t bring herself to disagree. Still, she presses on, “Even so, you could have really hurt someone.”

“Would’ve sent a good message.”

“Cloud!”

Cloud is quiet for a moment, then. Words are on the edge of her tongue, and she means to speak but she’s surprised when Cloud decides to continue.

“You deserve better than that. I hate that people don’t see that.”

“Cloud…” she says and is surprised to find her voice softening.

“You do.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” She says, leaning forward, words warm, “I can take care of the bar and any drunk fools that happen to wander in. You didn’t have to do that.”

Cloud gives a nonchalant shrug. “All those years ago, I promised I’d save you if you were ever in a pinch. Right?”

Her heart swells. It’s not the time or place for such warmth to be spreading through her, but it does anyway, and she feels a blossoming affection for this boy. _Her_ boy, _her_ Cloud.

 _No, not_ your _boy. Not_ your _Cloud._

Still, she wishes. So badly. Wishes she could call Cloud her boy. Call him hers. In a way that’s different from how they are now. In a way that’s more possessive. Less nebulous and ill-defined, like it currently is.

_Wish all you want. It’s just not how things are._

The thought stings, because there’s some truth to it. As much she wishes otherwise.

It makes her pause, breath somewhere caught deep in her throat. Clawing at the inside of her, struggling to pass through her lips, still lodged in its place. Her lungs burn.

It feels like she’s breathing underwater.

“Tifa?”

Cloud’s face is so close. Examining her. It makes everything worse. So, so much worse.

The hard cut of his jaw. The smooth downturn of his lips. Watchful, sharp eyes. Jagged, golden strands falling along his forehead. Dusting his eyes like spools of captured sunlight.

To her, when she thinks handsome, she thinks of his name. As if everything about him was cut from a cloth designed to warm her body, to settle against her skin, and breathe heat and comfort into her.

Tifa shakes her head. Tries to smile. Tries. But she knows it’s just for show. It’s strained and disingenuous. There’s a time to revel in that warmth, to hold it close to her chest, so she can memorize the way it feels until they settle back into their old routine and distance between them grows again. She knows, now is not that time.

“I’m not sure that was really what I had in mind.”

Cloud tries to hide the hurt look that creeps across his face like an evening shadow, “I know.”

“Then, why, Cloud?”

Cloud shakes his head, those golden strands swaying across his eyes once more.

“Did you not think I could handle him myself?” she asks, hastily, sensing he’s beginning to withdraw.

“No,” he says, “I know you can.”

“Good.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Cloud, if I turned around and leveled every drunk idiot whose hand decided to wander its way onto me, we’d have no customers,” she says, “Sometimes I have to pick my battles.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“I hate it too, believe me. And if I could punch every person who did it, I would. But I can’t. We need the customers. Besides,” she clears her throat, the lie sitting neatly on the tip of her tongue, “It doesn’t happen nearly as often as you think it does. Once in a blue moon. It’s nothing to worry yourself over, Cloud.”

Cloud’s face falls. His brow creasing and his mouth forming a stark frown. Her heart aches for him. He’s been wearing it more lately. She thought they’d been making progress since the whole Geostigma crisis, but now he’s wearing that same guilty frown, and her heart is hurting all over again. Her head is swimming. Her chest feels tight like there’s a vice around her lungs and her breath feels shallow. Like it’s never enough to fill her chest.

It feels like breathing underwater.

“Cloud…” she says, and she wants to reach for him, to hold his face in her hands and tell him he’s not responsible for the actions of some drunk dirtbag. That with people like those factory workers, the outcome would have been the same whether he’d been at the bar, or somewhere far off on delivery, or sleeping in a slowing decaying church miles away.

“I know I haven’t been around.”

She shakes her head, “It’s happened even when you were around. It’s nothing new,” She tries her best to smile, anything to pull him away from this path she sees him staring down, “I’m perfectly capable of handling it myself.”

“That makes it even worse.”

“What do you mean?”

Cloud rings his hands. Fusses with the gauze. Anything to not meet her eyes. “Tonight has been… _weird_ … for me.”

“That’s okay, Cloud. We all have off days.”

“It’s not okay. I’ve been so wrapped in my problems, in my own head, that I didn’t see that I wasn’t being there for you. I wasn’t protecting you,” his voice drops so low, barely above a whisper, and if she wasn’t sitting so close to him, Tifa is sure she wouldn’t be able to hear him, “I wasn’t there to help when you needed me.”

She starts to say something, but Cloud barrels over her.

“I know you can handle it yourself. But you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to juggle running a bar, raising two kids, piecing me back together constantly, and fending off drunk assholes _by yourself_.”

Her breath hitches when he looks up at her abruptly. His features are handsome but set. Determined.

It makes her head swim sometimes. That this boy can make her feel so out of sorts. All these years and even now she feels like she’s still learning new things about him. Just when she thinks she finally has him pinned down, he goes and does something that surprises her. Sometimes she gets the sense he’s still learning about himself too.

“Cloud, you don’t need—”

“I know I don’t _need_ to do anything. I _want_ to do this,” he says, his voice thick with that hard steel edge that means he’s got his mindset on something, and he won’t be deterred, “If you will let me.”

“Why?”

“I want…” he trails off, eyes scanning the ground as if he’ll find the answer there, “I want a reason to be around more.”

“And you think being the bar’s bouncer is the way to do that?”

“I think it’s a step in the right direction.”

“Cloud…”

“I want one more reason to come home every night. Just so I can be around. Something that will make me feel useful,” he mumbles, “So I can feel like I’m rebuilding things. If I keep one promise, I want it to be the one I made to you.”

Tifa sits, stunned. Her mouth moves, and she knows it’s a dumb thing to say. She’s just so caught off guard by Cloud letting his guard down. She shouldn’t be. They’ve been getting better at communicating ever since his recovery. Still, she says probably the dumbest thing she could at that moment.

“I-I can’t pay you…”

If Cloud thinks the comment is dumb, he doesn’t show it. “I’m not doing this for money, Tifa.”

 _Strange words to fall from a former mercenary’s mouth_ , she thinks.

“No, no. I know. I just—”

“If my being here can keep that from happening even just a little bit,” he says, “I think it’s worth it.”

Tifa tries to find a counter-argument, but she kind of likes the idea of having Cloud around more, and really, that kind of kills the will to find a counter-argument inside her. Still, what sells it is his eyes. The hard glow of them. The look Cloud always wears when he’s set his mind on something. When he won’t be swayed from something he wants to accomplish.

Finally, she caves.

“Okay.”

Cloud nods, triumphant. Resolute. Eyes are set like crystalline stones.

She sighs, “But if we’re going to do this, we need to establish some ground rules first.”

“Alright.”

She raises a finger, “One: Please don’t go all SOLDIER on anyone unless I say so.”

Cloud frowns, “But—”

“Cloud…” she warns.

Cloud huffs. “Fine.”

Another finger pops up to join the first. “Two: No killing yourself to juggle this and the delivery service. Your main job always comes first, alright?”

“I can do both.”

Tifa smiles softly, “I know you can, but I don’t like the idea of you speeding home in the middle of the night on a giant bike so you can play bodyguard for a few hours.”

“I can cut down on my long-distance deliveries, it’s not—”

“Cloud. Please,” she says.

“Fine.”

“And three: If you do need to get physical, make sure you take it outside, alright?” Tifa isn’t sure she could afford to have Cloud putting a mako-infused beat down on anyone inside the bar. She starts imagining dollar signs and damages and it gives her a rush of anxiety. Not to mention the reputation they might get with the patrons.

“Happily.”

She has nothing else, so she just sits and stares at him for a moment.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Cloud?”

Cloud nods, “Yes.”

“Alright,” She says, “Well, let’s go back downstairs. For tonight, can you just hang out with Barret? That way I can get the bar back to normal?”

“Yeah.”

Cloud begins to move to the door, but Tifa stops him.

“Wait,” she says, suddenly unsure why she feels so shy about it.

Cloud turns to her, eyebrows raised.

“Thank you. For before.”

Cloud smiles. One of his honest, genuine ones. They’re so rare, and never more than a tiny uptick at the corner of his lips, but they never fail to make Tifa’s heart thud like a jackhammer.

“I promised, didn’t I?”

And then he’s gone. Out the door and on his way back down to the bar. Leaving Tifa warm, confused, and her face glowing the color of the setting sun. Listening to her heartbeat thud loudly in her ears. Her lungs fluttering and weightless.

Like she’s breathing underwater.


	3. What Should I Say?

The water is scalding, but Tifa hardly notices.

Her eyes are across the bar, but really, her mind is elsewhere. Not on the scalding water, or the weird sinking feeling in her chest, or the sudden desire to just up and close the bar early.

No, her eyes are locked on one blond-haired mercenary across the bar. And her stomach is in knots because of it.

It’s not even so much that he’s doing something wrong. In fact, he’s not doing much of anything. Just standing there. Being his usual impassive self.

It’s what the other two young women hovering around him are doing.

Gawking and drooling and sidling up against his frame. Making wide-eyed passes, with fingertips passing along the skin of his arms, blushing and giggling as he answers in terse single syllables.

A perfectly manicured fingertip slides up his forearm. Tifa feels her stomach flip. Still, the woman’s hand wanders, exploring like a cartographer, mapping the rise of his bicep, the crest of his triceps, the hard lines of his wrists.

She grips the glass in her hands tighter. Doesn’t feel it crack.

_What’s wrong with me? Why does it feel like my stomach is doing backflips?_

Everything feels off. Heartbeat staggering and hiccupping. Throat filled with sand and dry air.

_Just come over here. I’d feel so much better if you were here and not there._

Sighing, she sneaks another glance at Cloud’s face. He’s looking a little out of sorts, as one of the women puts a hand on his arm and looks up at him from beneath long lashes and pristinely applied mascara and eyeshadow.

A vice clamps around her chest. Her grip on the glass tightens as if it’s the only thing keeping that vice from completely siphoning off the breath in her lungs.

The cracks in the glass deepen, growing more pronounced. A creaking sound slips through the din of the bar.

“Tifa?”

The world comes crashing back in.

Snapping upright, fumbling with the glass in her hands that is suddenly so much more slippery than she remembers it being, and covered in far more soap than she remembers it needing, Tifa looks to the source of the voice that broke her from the confines of her brain.

Marlene sits at the bar. Her little fists tucked underneath her chin. Feet dangling over the stool, kicking aimlessly. Her eyes are big and round and intently locked on Tifa’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

Tifa throws on a quick smile, “Nothing’s wrong, honey. Why?”

“The glass is cracked, Tifa.”

Tifa looks at the mug in her hands. Cracks run up and down the sides like jagged veins. “Oh…so it is,” she says. Placing the glass off to the side, she reaches for the dish towel and dries her hands.

_Was I really been gripping it that tight?_

“Tifa?”

“What is it, sweetie?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Tifa can feel Marlene’s eyes on her. Sometimes, it feels like Marlene can see inside of her. Into the core of who she is, into the center of what makes Tifa, _Tifa._

For the first time that night, Tifa thinks to herself:

_What should I say?_

She settles with the answer that feels like it will lead to the least awkward conversation.

“Of course, Marlene. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Then why do you look so sad, Tifa?”

Tifa sets the glass aside, makes a mental note to throw it out later. “Do I really?” she asks, adopting a cheery smile, hoping it will throw her almost-daughter off the track of her question.

Marlene nods frantically. “Your mouth gets all tight and your eyebrows do this—” she raises a hand to her forehead and mushes her brows down into a caricature of a face all twisted up and deep in some kind of aggressive concentration.

Tifa imagines it to be the face Cloud wears when he’s trying to tighten a particularly unruly screw on Fenrir’s frame. The face that’s usually accompanied by the occasional (but often no less loud) expletive. Which usually prompts Tifa to remind Cloud to be mindful of the kids.

“See there it is!”

“There’s what?” Tifa asks.

“Your smile! It came back.”

Tifa blinks.

Marlene leans forward on the bar, hands flat, feet balanced on the rungs of her stool. “I like that smile. But you’re not wearing it. The other face looks sad.”

Tifa feels like she’s steadily losing control of this conversation. Sometimes, she forgets how perceptive Marlene is, and that same keen perception of hers has only gotten sharper with age. Soon the day will come where dodging questions won’t cut it.

“I’m not sad. I promise,” Tifa says, adopting that too-cheery smile again. Still, the smile is at odds with the knot in her stomach, and the strange tightness in her chest.

She feels dirty. Slimy, even. Lying to Marlene like this. It feels alien, like a skin she’s forcing herself to wear.

_But what should I say? How many times can I spin her little white lies?_

She tries to remind herself she’s only human. That little white lies are normal.

It doesn’t scrub away the feeling.

Marlene brings a thumb to her lips. She hums, thinking in between noises in that spacey way that children do. “Maybe sad isn’t the right word,” Marlene says in between hums, “You kept looking at Cloud, but you looked like you ate something sour.” Marlene plops her hands back down on the counter, as if to punctuate her point, “How come Tifa?”

Tifa stammers, fumbling around half syllables and barely formed thoughts.

“Did Cloud do something wrong?” Marlene asks, suddenly concerned, looking to Cloud in the corner and back at Tifa behind the bar, going to and from them like she’s missing some important detail, “Did you have a fight?”

“What? No!” Tifa yelps, “Of course not.”

“Why don’t you go talk to him?” Marlene asks, “He always listens to you.”

“She’s right.”

Tifa jumps.

Vincent slinks up to the bar. His deeply crimson cape trails behind him as he goes, twirling and writhing like fog. Tonight, he has forgone the golden claws usually strapped to his fingertips, along with the majority of his usual armor.

Tifa steadies her heart rate, trying to catch her breath after the scare. Sometimes she forgets that Vincent has only one volume setting: quiet as a mouse. Voice, movement, combat. All things Vincent did in perfectly crimson-colored quiet.

Marlene grins up at him, clearly appreciating the help.

Tifa presses on, “Seriously, Cloud and I have nothing to talk about. Everything is fine.”

“You do not seem fine.”

Tifa shoots Vincent a look. A loaded one, as if to say, _you aren’t helping._

Vincent doesn’t seem to notice. “If something is the matter between you two, why not speak with him?”

Marlene nods along, a determined pout coloring her features. “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm” she echoes.

“Everything’s fine. Really,” Tifa says, “All this is a bit much, don’t you think?”

As if on a metronome, Vincent and Marlene shake their heads in unison. If not for the full-court-press they had leveled her with Tifa might have found it funny.

“I don’t like it when you two fight,” Marlene says.

“Oh, sweetie, we aren’t fighting. I promise.”

Vincent folds his arm, “Even if you aren’t fighting if something is the matter, I believe you should speak with him.” Trailing his eyes, Vincent looks to Cloud. “After all, you are the only one the man has ever really opened up to. It’s not unreasonable to think he would be willing to listen to any grievances you may be harboring.” Vincent tugs his scarf closer to his mouth, settling in, “In fact, I think he’d be rather swift in trying to rectify them.”

Heat floods her face, “What?” Tifa stammers out.

“You seem surprised. Did you not know this?”

“No, I just…” she trails off, unsure where she was going in the first place. Words seem to escape her.

“Cloud is… _guarded_. That much is true,” Vincent says, “It’s certainly a struggle to get the man to speak on much of anything if he is not willing. But when push comes to shove, I believe he has always valued you and your feelings above all others.”

Tifa is slow to respond. Her mind feels suddenly foggy. “Do you believe that?”

“I do.”

“Why?” Bile rises in her throat as soon as the word leaves her lips. It feels like an ugly word. A terrible question to ask. As though by seeking evidence she’s committed to a betrayal of all the trust she’s put in Cloud.

She thinks of an old church. Of a sleeping bag that smells like him, sprawled across the aging floorboards. Scattered belongings and research notes. The question lingering on the tip of her tongue, coated in the same acidic taste as the one she just asked Vincent.

_Oh, Cloud. Why did you run?_

She swallows thickly. She thinks some scars truly are slower to heal.

“Because I believe you are his True North.”

“Oh…” she manages, turning away, trying to hide the nervous smile spreading across her face. Her face feels tingly, her limbs suddenly weightless.

She doesn’t fault him now. Doesn’t think less of him or doubt his commitment to their family any longer. Their conversation some two weeks ago, with her hands bandaging his knuckles, ghosting over calluses and old wounds long healed, was enough to reassure her of that.

_‘I want another reason to be around more.’_

She smiles to herself, hoping beyond hope that there might indeed be some truth to that statement.

“Hey, Mr. Vincent,” Marlene chimes in.

“Yes?”

“Cloud always makes Tifa smile,” Marlene chimes in, “but sometimes when Tifa looks at Cloud she gets all sad and her face looks all confused and twisted up. Why is that?”

The urge to close the bar right then and there is stronger than it has been.

_Why does it always have to be the complicated questions?_

In some ways, Tifa thinks Marlene maybe deserves to know. But that would mean having a talk Tifa hasn’t even had the nerve to have with herself.

Would she be able to even properly explain feelings she’s not even quite sure she understands herself? How could she explain all of it to Marlene when she barely has it sorted out herself?

Explaining their history would be an exercise in toeing the line between sticking to the facts and sorting out the murky, rose-colored hues in her heart. The ones she takes out only during the quietest of nights. In the lonely hours between night and dawn. Flipping those warm colors around and around, trying to examine every rough angle, every soft touch, all in the hope of having some kind of eureka moment. And there hasn’t been one yet. Just an aching in her chest and longing for a man two rooms over.

The same question, for the umpteenth time tonight, rings in her head, like a hollow bell sounding off. Punctuating the sharp edges of her own unsorted emotions with a fading ring.

_What should I say?_

She’s thought those words a few times too many tonight, hasn’t she?

So, Tifa settles for something easy.

“It’s not that simple, Marlene. Cloud and I are…”

“What do you call that feeling Tifa?” Marlene asks, “Where you’re not mad, but your face squishes up like you ate something sour?”

“Marlene—”

A chipper voice cuts in and Tifa realizes her problems have only just begun, “Do my ears deceive me? Is Tifa Lockhart _jealous_?”

With an agile twist of her limbs, Yuffie slides into a stool next to Marlene. She sets her head in her hands, leans forward, and grins a grin Tifa recognizes only as trouble.

“Yuffie…” Tifa warns, feeling tired already. She gets the harsh sense that she knows exactly where this conversation is going. She wonders if it’s too late to start drinking.

“Tifa is jealous?” Marlene makes a face like she’s hearing something dastardly.

Tifa thinks she’s never seen a conversation spiral so quickly.

This is the start of one of Yuffie’s favorite pastimes. A good old-fashioned game of _Let’s Discuss Tifa’s Love Life in Brutally Embarrassing Detail._

Pinching the bridge of her nose, feeling the beginning thuds of a headache coming on, Tifa thinks, ‘ _Not tonight, Yuffie. Any night but tonight…’_

Usually, Tifa has the wherewithal to deal with Yuffie’s poorly timed forays into the details of nonexistent romantic life. Not tonight, though. The knot in her stomach and the weariness in her bones has drained her.

Still, feigning ignorance seems like the best route to take. Laughing the whole thing off, she goes back to washing the dishes. “Yuffie, stop filling her head with nonsense.”

“Nonsense? Oh, come on. Even Marlene noticed you staring at Cloud.”

“I don’t like where this is going...” Vincent grumbled.

Tifa thinks, _You and me both._

Curiosity piqued, Marlene presses on, “Tell me, Yuffie! Please?” 

Yuffie, ever keen to pick up on a new opportunity to tease Tifa about her impossibly stagnant love life, chimes right in. “Don’t let these grumps tell you otherwise, Marlene. Tifa is jealous. Anyone with a pair of eyes can tell. Want to know why?”

“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Tifa says, hating the nervous laughter coloring her words.

_Oh, this is really not going to end well._

“Why is Tifa jealous?” Marlene asks like this is the most serious thing in the world.

“I’m not, Marlene. Yuffie is just teasing me.”

“She’s jealous,” Yuffie barrels on, completely undeterred, “because someone else is putting the moves on Cloud.”

“Putting the moves?” Marlene asks, “Like in blitzball?”

“Why must you pollute the child’s mind?” Vincent asks.

Yuffie grins, teeth flashing, eyebrows wiggling suggestively, “See those two women?”

Marlene looks, cocks her head, then nods.

“See how they’re getting a little too close to Cloud? How they’ve got their hands on his arms?”

Marlene bobs her head.

“Tifa is jealous because she wishes that was her—"

“ _Ooookayyy_ ,” Tifa yelps, cutting in, “That’s enough. No more filling her head with nonsense.”

Yuffie waves her off, “See, Tifa doesn’t like it when other women put their hands all over Cloud. She wants that to be her job.”

“Good grief,” Vincent whispers, rubbing his temples.

“Are those ladies making you upset Tifa?” Marlene asks.

“Is it warm in here?” Tifa groans to no one in particular because she knows no one is listening to her anyway.

Yuffie snickers, “You better hurry, girl, or someone is going to take him from you.”

Marlene whirls on Yuffie, horrified, “Someone is going to take Cloud from Tifa?”

“No one is taking, Cloud, Marlene.”

But she doesn’t hear Tifa. Yuffie is still digging the hole around Tifa’s feet.

“Well if Tifa doesn’t hurry and make a move, yeah. Cloud’s handsome. A bit of a pain in the ass, sure, but he’s built nicely. Not to mention he’s got a pretty face.”

“Why would anyone want to take Cloud from Tifa?” Marlene asks, her voice growing warbly. Tifa can tell Marlene is on the verge of tears now.

“Well,” Yuffie says, letting the word drag out, “Let’s just say plenty of girls are warm for Cloud’s form, yeah?”

“Yuffie!” Tifa cries.

“What? It’s true. You know it is.”

“You are truly a walking corruption of youth,” Vincent deadpans.

“Hey, I resent that,” Yuffie snaps back at him.

“Can we please change the subject?” Tifa pleads.

The heat blooming along her cheekbones is almost unbearable. She wishes the floorboards would open wide and swallow her whole. Yuffie’s lack of tact is astounding, and Tifa is already dreading having to find an appropriate way to explain all of Yuffie’s euphemisms later.

_Can tonight just end already?_

She wishes she could just filter all the teasing out. Turn it down into harmless background noise. Noise Tifa’s always heard about the two of them.

_When are you two going to get together? Do you love him? You two would make such a great couple!_

The list goes on.

But it never seems to make her feel any less _stuck_.

Sometimes Tifa thinks she’s heard it all. Yet, somehow the list always seems to be expanding. Usually because of Yuffie.

But in truth, she knows it’s not just Yuffie. It’s _all_ of Edge. She hears the whispers. Hears the quiet conversations of the bar patrons. The mumbled fragments that skirt around her whenever she speaks with Cloud. Things have only gotten worse since Cloud put the beatdown on that construction crew.

The rumors don’t escape her. They just find their way to her quietly.

Sometimes, she wishes all the gossip came as Yuffie’s did. Direct, in her face. At least that way she could put it all to bed upfront. Cutting it like a weed at the root. 

If only that were the way things could be.

Maybe then all the rosy daydreams would stop. All the what-if scenarios and wistful wishing haunting her into the waning hours of the night. When she’s alone and wondering what the brush of his skin feels like, the sound of his voice in her ear. Waking up each night to the creak of floorboards, the bang of a pipe, the squeak of a door. Straining the edges of her hearing, hoping one day those sounds will be followed by the heavy padding of his footsteps just outside her door. That he’d push it open and move them beyond this forever-looping dance.

But it’s always just a pipe. Always just an old wooden board settling.

So, for now, she’s just _stuck_.

She clears her throat, thinking, naively, that this is the last of it. That she can’t be mortified any further.

That’s when she notices Marlene is no longer in her seat.

The sharp jolt of panic races through her – the fear that seeps in when your child isn’t where you’d just left them.

A swish of pink, a bob of pigtails, and Tifa stills her anxious heartbeat.

Marlene is across the bar, girlish pink dress swaying against skinned knees as she strides with purpose. Tiny fists balled together, pigtails bobbing as she goes.

She stops in front of Cloud and the two women.

Cloud’s face immediately changes. His brow furrows, mouth tightening. His entire demeanor shifts, like a guard dog’s ears perking up, alerted to some form of danger. Extrapolating himself brusquely from the two women who have managed to snake their perfectly manicured fingers around his arms, Cloud kneels, so he’s eye level with Marlene. Attentive, attuned, receptive. Ready to address whatever issue has upset the little ball of fire he calls his daughter.

In a way, it warms Tifa’s heart. Makes her wonder. Rattles the locks on doors in her heart she promised herself she’d keep closed.

Eyebrows climb his forehead as Marlene talks, disappearing beneath the slashes of golden hair that fall about his face.

“Look at that. Things are getting juicy,” Yuffie snickers.

“Strange,” Vincent says, “I get the sense she isn’t yelling at Cloud, in particular.”

Tifa jumps, “Do you think she’s yelling at those women?”

Vincent shrugs, “Maybe. Couldn’t say.”

Tifa wipes her hands on an old dishtowel and slips through the bar sectional. It clacks shut loudly.

“Oooh,” Yuffie calls as she goes, “Now Tifa’s getting involved. Get your drinks ready. Here comes the show, folks.”

Tifa shoots her an exasperated look but continues down the bar.

“You’re making Tifa sad, Cloud,” Marlene is saying, “Don’t you know that?”

Cloud is looking preciously bewildered, and Tifa can tell he’s been entirely unaware. Now, he’s running through everything he’s said over the last few days – which frankly isn’t a lot – that might have upset Tifa. It’s easy enough to tell. It’s always easy to tell.

“I… No, I didn’t?” Cloud says, reaching down and hoisting her up to cradle her against his forearm.

“I think you should talk to her, Cloud. She looked so sad watching you earlier.”

“But I was just standing here…what did I do?”

Tifa is about halfway across the bar when she hears one of the women say, “Oh! Who is this little sweetheart?”

Tifa watches as Marlene puts on a face and leans away from the blonde-haired woman, who is trying to tease her nose with those long, slender fingers. The red-haired woman – standing like a sentinel with a penchant for too much blush—gives a thinly veiled twitch of her lips.

“My name is Marlene.”

“Oh, you’re a father? That’s so wonderful,” the Blonde one says to Cloud, moving a few centimeters closer as though she wants to whisper in his ear. Tifa thinks if the blonde got any closer, she’d be straddling him. “Are you and the Mother still… _together?”_

Tifa hears the word and her skin crawls. There is no mystery to what the woman is implying. Annoyance bubbles up, but she quickly quells it. This isn’t a territorial battle. She has no claim to him. No flag on atop _Castle Cloud._

Tifa is not that kind of girl. But she’s been telling herself that for the better half of the night, and she’s feeling less and less convinced each time.

Cloud ignores the blonde hair woman, hoists Marlene up closer, holds his gaze on her. “Did Tifa say what was the matter?”

Tifa is coming up just behind them when Marlene says, “Yuffie says Tifa is jealous.”

The bar doesn’t stop. The chatter doesn’t die instantaneously, as if on a dial. There’s no collective turning of heads. No eyes training on her with an overbearing pressure.

The bar hardly seems to notice. The words are nothing. Just syllables layered into the chatter. But to Tifa, it feels like her world has suddenly just ground to a screeching halt.

Her face is burning. Stomach sinking, lower and lower. A horrible sensation spreading through her, like her insides are being wrung out like a dishrag. She thinks she might just be sick on the floor.

Her feet are itching to run, and Tifa thinks she might just be able to break from the train wreck unfolding in front of her. But then Cloud’s eyes drift up and off Marlene and lock on hers.

“Tifa is… jealous?” he says, and it feels like he’s speaking directly to her.

This is it. This is the nail in the coffin. Tifa doesn’t think she can handle having Cloud ask her why she’s jealous. She could pin it on Yuffie. Chalk it up to more of her usual teasing. He’s usually never around to hear it, so maybe he doesn’t know the severity of it.

No, that might buy her a little time, but Cloud’s not dumb. He’d figure it out sooner or later.

It’s not too late, Tifa tells herself. If she can just get in there quickly enough, she can do some damage control. It’ll be tough to circumvent the question but with a little grace and well-timed verbal dodging, she might just make it out of this with her sanity intact.

But Marlene isn’t done. She’s pointing at the women, digging her face closer into Cloud shoulder, saying “You two can’t have Cloud.”

Tifa gasps, “Marlene!”

Marlene looks to her, eyes wide. Tears forming at the corners. She presses the sleeves of her dress to wipe them away, wheels back to the two women, putting on her bravest face, and says, “Cloud is Tifa’s. And Tifa is Cloud’s.”

“Did I miss something here?” Cloud presses, no longer trying to hide the bewilderment in his voice.

“These girls are…” Marlene thinks, her brows furrowing, “ _Warm for your form_!”

Tifa balks.

The sentence feels like it echoes. Like it’s bouncing off the walls of the bar like a ping-pong ball.

Cloud blinks once, twice, then flatly, “ _Huh?_ ”

Tifa is rushing in, thinking, _This is how I die. Of total and complete embarrassment…_

“Marlene, sweetie,” she says, but catches Cloud’s puzzled look.

“Do you know what’s going on? I’m…uhh—I’m lost here.”

“Nothing,” is all Tifa can manage, throat feeling painfully dry. She reaches up, tries to wrangle Marlene from Cloud’s arms.

“Who is this?” The blonde woman asks. Her voice is neutral, but the slight curl of her lip isn’t. It’s all Tifa needs to recognize that she’s become public enemy number one.

“This is Tifa,” Cloud says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Which isn’t helping to soothe the situation.

“You and the mother are still together?”

Marlene shakes her head, “Cloud and Tifa aren’t my real mom and dad.”

“Oh?” The redheaded woman says with a thin smile.

“It’s… complicated,” Cloud is saying when Tifa interjects.

“Hi, I’m so sorry. I’m Tifa. I run this bar,” Tifa says, “Please excuse Marlene. She’s _very_ protective of Cloud.”

“Are you this girl’s mother?” The blonde one asks.

Tifa nods, “For all intents and purposes, yes.”

Cloud shoots her with a look, eyebrows high on his forehead.

Tifa mouths, “Yuffie.”

Cloud exhales slowly.

“So, you two are her parents?” The Redhead remarks.

Cloud opens his mouth to respond, but Tifa doesn’t see, doesn’t notice he’s moving to stand beside her, and just responds, because the sooner she does, the sooner all this mortification will be over.

“Yes,” Tifa says flashing her brightest smile.

“She looks nothing like either of you?” the blonde woman says.

“We’re not related by blood,” Tifa replies.

“I see. Well, regardless, you should probably do a better job of watching your daughter,” The blonde woman says, her face pleasant, but her tone sharp, “After all, it’s rude to interrupt a conversation and point fingers.”

A jolt races down to her fingertips. Her eyebrow twitches for just a second. The urge to drive a fist into this woman’s face is so astonishingly acute, it takes all of her willpower not to act on it.

_Don’t be a hypocrite. You told Cloud not to go making a scene. Don’t start one yourself. Keep it together._

“Yes, I’m terribly sorry,” Tifa says, trying her best to maintain the even keel of her voice, “Drinks are on the house tonight. To make up for all the trouble.”

“Tifa—” Cloud tries, but she stops him. Placing a hand on his arm softly, she holds his gaze. Softly shakes her head.

Cloud understands the look.

_Not here, not now._

Tifa can tell how much he hates it, but he exhales and listens.

The redhead smiles, and Tifa loathes the smug look of it. It’s a triumphant smile like Tifa has just lost some battle she had no intention of waging.

“That would be very nice,” The redhead says.

“It must be so hard,” The blonde woman crones, “Running a bar full time _and_ being a parent. It’s perfectly understandable if your child acts out, I suppose. Living in a situation like that, she must not get very much attention.”

The will to drive her fist through those perfectly white teeth vanishes.

In the entirety of her life, Tifa has heard some cutting things directed at her. Insults, judgments, jabs of all kinds. Some hurt worse than others. But this one, this one hurts worse than anything. It hurts the worst of all. Slices deeper, passed every wall, and every hardened nerve she has. It slips behind all of them and digs deeper. Strikes the one raw nerve she has left. The one weakness she’s never been able to strengthen.

Tifa knows she’s not a perfect mother. Knows she can better, be stronger. She’s only twenty-five. She’s just a kid herself. Still sorting out her own life. Feeling her way through the dark. Hoping she’s doing what’s best for her family.

She’s a parent now though. She’s supposed to have all the answers, isn’t she?

But she doesn’t. Not when it comes to parenting. And certainly not when it comes to Cloud.

She’s still trying to wade through the mess of her own feelings for Cloud. How she wants to be more than they are now. How she wants a change that would redefine everything they are now.

The roaring desire to dropkick these two women dies. Swallowed by these new feelings of inferiority.

Tonight’s been so long. Her nerves are frayed. She wishes she could close the bar up and just crawl into bed. Sleep it off. Start fresh in the morning. Try again tomorrow, try harder.

Cloud tries to say something, but Tifa cuts him off by giving his arm a small squeeze. He looks at her, and Tifa can see the frustration tightening the features of his face. She offers him what she hopes is a soothing smile.

It’s fake. Nothing more than a mask. But if it will salvage the night, she’ll learn to live with that lie.

Politely, she motions to the bar, “Please feel free to come up to the bar whenever you’d like. Drinks are on the house.”

She reaches up and gathers Marlene from Cloud’s arm. Marlene begins to protest, but Tifa softly hushes her. She pulls Marlene in close to her chest, prays the poor girl can’t feel her shaking. Whether from a wounded sense of pride, or sheer exhaustion, Tifa isn’t sure yet.

Marlene looks like she might cry too, but Tifa smooths her hair out and leans her forehead against hers. Kisses her forehead slowly. Marlene perks up a little,

Tifa looks to Cloud, nods a quick ‘ _thank you_ ’, and heads back down the bar.

“So, now that she’s gone, when are you off the clock? Would you like to join us for those drinks on the house?”

She can’t see Cloud, doesn’t see him turn back to the women, hands tight at his side, eyes hard and glowing.

“What gives you the right to say something like that?”

The redhead woman responds, “I’m sorry?”

“Clueless.”

“Oh, don’t be so upset. Sometimes a little constructive criticism is good.”

“Seriously, what is it _with_ this bar and people thinking they can disrespect Tifa here?”

“No need to get so up in arms about it. It was just a little—”

“Tifa doesn’t need your criticism,” Cloud snaps, “You don’t know a thing about her.”

One of the women clucks her tongue.

“I’d appreciate it if you gave her the respect she deserves. Because she deserves so much more than anything she’s ever been given. She’s stronger, _better,_ than anyone I know -- including you two. So, do me a favor and treat her like it.” 

Tifa freezes, halting in between steps.

Her heart suddenly feels so full in her chest. Warm, like a tiny furnace, pumping liquid heat through her veins.

She wishes she could turn to Cloud, tell him that that means the world to her. Wishes she could say something that would show Cloud that all she wants is Cloud away from those women, and near her. By her side. Because as long as he’s by her side, she could care less what other people think. They’d figure it out together like they always have.

For the last time that night, Tifa thinks to herself, _What should I say?_

And something dawns on her.

She’s tired of talking. Tired of trying to hide behind flimsy words and deflections and excuses. Tired of perceiving the knot in her stomach as something she has no control over.

Above all else, she’s long since grown frustrated with this standstill. Grown so sick of being _stuck_ the way they are. When all she wants is to feel a little closer. Closer to the boy that owns so much space in her heart.

So, for the first time that night, she doesn’t think.

She just _acts._

Easing her daughter down, she ruffles Marlene’s hair and tells her to go on ahead. Marlene looks skeptical for a moment but obliges, pink dress swishing as she goes.

Tifa turns and heads back the way she came.

She slides up behind Cloud, places a hand on the broad wing of his back. He turns, surprised.

“Tifa?” 

Stepping closer to him, so she’s in his space, can hear the way his breath hitches as she moves, can smell the burnt salty fire of motor oil on his clothes, she leans up. Stretches onto the tips of her toes to reach his cheek.

She presses her lips there. And she feels the fresh scratch of stubble on his jaw. Can taste the mint of his aftershave. Tifa tries but fails, to hide the shiver that races up her spine.

Cloud’s entire body goes stock still.

Tifa doesn’t pass up the opportunity to take a peek at the infuriated faces of the two women still lingering around Cloud.

Why had she been so afraid in the first place? Why hadn’t she gone on the offensive sooner? Tifa wonders. A challenge didn’t always come in the form of barred teeth and swords and bullets. Just because this battle didn’t involve her fists, didn’t mean she couldn’t step to the challenge, right?

All this distance, this chasm between them, and all one of them ever had to do was just jump. Extend a hand. Call the other’s name.

So much time wasted being _stuck_ in the same void of inaction. Maybe sometimes, change did come with a shove.

A smile slowly blooms along her lips as they retreat from Cloud’s cheek.

“Make sure you eat tonight, okay?”

Cloud stares, the green of his eyes giving way to the blue before the swirling color vanishes. Swallowed by the black of his pupils, now blown wide. His mouth flails but no sound escapes. Tifa stifles a laugh as Cloud takes a second and swallows. A beat passes, but he says nothing, just clears his throat.

“Yeah,” He chokes, voice oddly strained, eyes high on the ceiling.

Suddenly, Cloud is the boy she remembers from her youth.

It’s in the way his eyes seem to roam everywhere but her face. Gliding across the bar, and then the ceiling, the floor, then back again. How he just can’t seem to figure out what to do or what to say or where to look so he just settles for standing quietly off to the side.

It’s been a long time since she’s seen this version of him. She likes it just as much now as she did back then.

Reaching up to place a hand on his chest, she casts one last triumphant look at the women who have since turned their sultry gazes into knife-edge glares and saunters away.

Everyone shares a look of stunned silence as she slides back behind the bar.

“Well, damn,” Yuffie says, shocked.

“Knew you had it in you,” Vincent smirks, and slinks away from the bar.

Tifa can’t help but think that she agrees.

Later, when the bar is clearing out, and the lights have dimmed, Tifa finds Cloud. He slinks down the stairs quietly, taking each step with caution, avoiding the loose boards that squeak and groan.

She’s flipping over the barstools and placing them atop the freshly cleaned tables when he swings behind the bar.

“Marlene asleep?” she asks.

“Mm-hmm,” he grunts.

“Are you turning in for the night?”

“Not yet.”

Tifa nods, clacking the last stool in its place. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

Cloud pauses, thinks for a moment, then sighs. He offers her a small, shy smile. Nothing more than a twitch of his lips. But it’s enough to send Tifa’s heart soaring.

_Don’t ever change, Cloud._

Sometimes she wonders where Cloud would be without her. Would he remember to bathe, let alone eat? Tifa gets the sense that he wouldn’t sleep if she didn’t come to drag him away from tinkering with Fenrir most nights.

In a way, she admires that single-minded drive he’s always had.

“I left you some food in the fridge. Want me to heat it up for you?”

“I can do it.”

“Let me. I left some stuff in there for me too,” Tifa says, pushing Cloud back down into the one lone unturned stool he occupies, “It was a little busy tonight, so I didn’t get a chance to eat much either.”

Cloud looks like he might argue, but in the end, settles back into his seat and lets her prop open the fridge. Digging out two plates, she peels off the plastic wrap and heats each one in the microwave until steam rises in wisps from the mashed potatoes and the cheese melts on the burgers once more.

Tifa slides a plate in front of him and plops down into an unoccupied stool next to him. “Dig in,” she says.

Cloud doesn’t need any prompting. He grabs the burger and wolfs it down, tearing chunks from it. Tifa stifles a giggle as she watches him go.

“Slow down, Cloud,” she says, nudging him, “You’re going to choke eating like that.”

Cloud freezes, burger halfway between his plate and his mouth. “Sorry…” he mutters, putting the half-eaten patty back down onto his plate and taking a long sip of water.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“I had some jerky for lunch.”

“Seriously? That’s all?”

Cloud blinks, a blank look on his face. “Marlene shared some of her fries with me earlier.”

“Cloud, you’re going to get sick eating like that.”

Cloud looks down at his plate, face set in an almost childlike display of guilt. “I got distracted this afternoon. I was working on Fenrir… didn’t have time to stop for lunch” he says, and his voice picks up, the faintest hints of excitement coloring his words, “I think I figured out how I can rewire the fuel pumps to get more mileage out of a single tank and still maintain the usual speed I drive at.”

“Well, that’s good. I’m glad,” Tifa says, but points at his burger, “But no amount of tinkering is going to replace an actual meal.”

“You’re right.”

“Just promise me you’ll at least try to eat dinner.”

“We could…” Cloud trails off, eyes burning a hole in the mashed potatoes his fork has been aimlessly twirling around in, “We could eat together? From now on. Make it like a family dinner thing.”

Tifa looks up quickly. Stares at him for a brief moment. She’s not sure why the suggestion surprises her, but it does, and she forgets to respond for a few seconds.

“We don’t have to,” Cloud says abruptly, “I get you’re probably busy prepping for the evening rush.”

“No,” she says, realizing just how long she’d be silent, “Family dinner sounds good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mm-hmm. I think I’d like that.”

Cloud nods and returns to his meal.

Silence settles in, but Tifa isn’t uncomfortable reveling in it. It feels nice.

Her heart feels warm and full in her chest. It’s these quiet moments like this that she’s missed. Just the two of them, alone, talking freely. Or sometimes not talking at all. Just existing peacefully in the other’s space. It’s these moments -- where they can just sit and be themselves, letting everything just be -- she adores.

Weightless and free.

She didn’t realize just how much she longed to have these moments back.

Cloud asks her how the rest of her night went. She tells him everything went easy enough. A little hectic, she explains, but nothing she couldn’t handle.

“Who were those women?” she asks, avoiding his eyes, focusing solely on her fork as it pushes about the reheated vegetables.

“What women?”

Tifa shakes her head. Knows she shouldn’t have asked.

Cloud pops one last bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth, thinks for a minute, and then says, “Oh, those women. Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

Cloud shakes his head. “Nope. Not a clue.”

Tifa watches as he stands and grabs his plate that’s been picked clean of food. Walking around the bar to the sink, he turns on the faucet. “They just sort of came up to me. Wouldn’t stop talking.”

“You didn’t tell them to leave?”

“I did. I don’t think they listened,” Cloud grunts, “I wish they would’ve left me alone, though. It’s hard to pay attention to what’s going on when two strangers are in your ear non-stop.”

“You should have told me. I would’ve shooed them away for you.”

Cloud turns, looking confused, “You told me not to do anything that would drive away customers.”

Tifa laughs without meaning to. It just sort of slips out. Cloud looks even more bewildered by the sudden burst of giggling.

“That’s not what I meant, Cloud.”

“Oh…” he murmurs, “I didn’t want to bother you while you were working.”

“I’ll make an exception for you,” she grins, “Always.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She closes her eyes and smiles. The scent of him is stronger here, next to him. It’s soothing. 

“It happens a lot. I’m not really sure why.”

Tifa can’t help but chuckle at that. The sheer cluelessness of him sometimes is one of her favorite things about him. “Yuffie thinks they were trying to flirt with you.”

She knows _trying_ is putting it lightly. _Definitely_ is an infinitely more of an apt term, but Tifa bites her tongue on that.

Cloud snorts. “Not interested.”

Tifa nods. “Good to know,” she says, trying to sound nonchalant. She keeps her eyes on her plate, popping a carrot into her mouth, still avoiding Cloud’s gaze, even though she can feel it. Heavy on her form, like a current of electricity racing just beneath her skin. Oddly enough, Tifa can’t describe why it feels good to have that gaze drifting over her once more.

“Tifa.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry about what they said to you.”

“Don’t be.”

“What they said though…”

“People talk, it’s okay.”

“But—”

“I’ve got you, don’t I?”

“Of course.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what anyone says. That’s all that matters to me,” she replies, tossing him a warm smile.

Cloud sighs, but Tifa doesn’t miss the way the corner of his mouth twitches upwards.

Dishes clatter as water runs. The scent of detergent and soap fills the air. Tifa listens as Cloud scrubs his plate clean and places it on the rack. Her body hums. Her mind feels lighter, calmer, relieved. 

“Hey, Tifa?”

Cloud is there, beside her. Having drifted silently around the corner while she was lost in her thoughts. He’s so near, so close. Close enough to feel the heat of his body and the familiar weight of his gaze on her. It’s comforting and exhilarating all at once.

“I’m going to head to bed. Have to be up for an early delivery tomorrow.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah. I’ll make some coffee.”

“Okay, yeah,” she says, feeling disappointed that their quiet time together is coming to end, but altogether happy at the night’s turn of events, “Goodnight, Cloud.”

Cloud nods.

Then he’s in her space. His face is so impossibly close to hers. His lips ghost along her cheekbone. His touch is warm, his mouth soft. His breath smells like the meal they’d just shared. But Tifa hardly notices.

To her, the world has stopped. Hinged on its axis.

Then he’s retreating, moving across the room briskly. “Night, Tifa,” Cloud calls back to her. He stops in the doorway, the one that leads into the hall and down to his room. He smiles, small and surprisingly shy. Just a twitch of those lips that she can still feel like fire on her cheek. Then he’s gone.

Tifa sits for a moment. Mind a blank slate. Body somehow both numb and impossibly warm.

Not for the first time that night, Tifa wonders what she should say. Even if she’s just speaking to thin air.

But all she can think to say, with her fingertips still pressed to the place just below her temple where Cloud’s mouth had just been, wondering faintly if she’s dreaming or something, sounds so plain and so simple. Yet, it feels full of some kind of promise. As if the ground beneath them has shifted, and up from that once barren earth, a garden of new possibilities has bloomed.

“Yeah. Night, Cloud,” she whispers to no one at all.


End file.
